forwardmarchstudios | 14 Apr 2016 8:17 p.m. PST |
More here: 1809in3mm.blogspot.com I mean, the perfect battle mat material. I came back to the 3mm project after a few months getting ready for a big career move and immediately discovered a new miracle material for making 3mm battle mats. Humble burlap. Seriously though, I'm going to try to knock out a 12' x 8' version of this and go up from there. Keep your paints thin if you wan to try it out. |
emckinney | 14 Apr 2016 10:32 p.m. PST |
Nice work! Reading your blog is very interesting reading your blog. |
Trajanus | 15 Apr 2016 3:02 a.m. PST |
Translators Note: "Burlap" is known as "Hessian" outside of the US & Canada. Looks good though! :o) |
PzGeneral | 15 Apr 2016 3:19 a.m. PST |
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Editor in Chief Bill | 15 Apr 2016 5:37 a.m. PST |
direct link: link I wonder if a fabric dye would be useful to get the mat to 'grass' color? Also, would fabric paints be more practical on burlap? I assume they have more flex than regular paints. |
marshalGreg | 15 Apr 2016 6:51 a.m. PST |
Help me understand. Burlap vs felt vs the thin blanket/cloth material. Is it the cost savings? Or the texture is giving you a more field like look or is it the opportunity to paint it vs having to flock it as with the other two materials I mention? I do not see the attraction to going to this material…curious MG |
forwardmarchstudios | 15 Apr 2016 8:25 a.m. PST |
Esteemed Editor: I'm using the basic craft store paints and they seem to work well enough. I haven't had any problems with any of my mats. In part I think because I'm really watering the paint down so much to get a more mild, less artificial color. It's almost like I'm dying the material. My last mat worked the same way. If you compare these two most recent to the really big one I did awhile back you'll see a major difference in the over all look. The big one used unwatered-down latex craft paint and it took forever, was a lot of work on the floor and looks more artificial. As far as dying it, I think that would work. Burlap should absorb a dye. MarshalGreg- My whole blog has somewhat degenerated into my attempts to answer this question regarding 3mm figs, but really any of the smaller scales. Flocking I found to be too much work, messy and to give a somewhat false impression when used with 3mm figs. Felt is a weird material I find, with a very deep, unnatural color to it. It's difficult to paint as well. In some limited applications I think it can work. Cutting a bunch of different colored pieces out to use as fields is useful, but then you still have to find a way to make attractive roads and such. I could never get felt to look right (with 3mm anyway). With painted cloth, as I mentioned to Bill you can get a good looking product but you need to put some time into it. For a one-ff mat that's fine, but I wanted something that I could expand piece by piece. Also, taping down the road network to avoid bleed-over was a lot of work. Making the second newest mat on my webpage took several hours. I do like the effect I was able to get with the patchwork fields, however. The advantage of the burlap is that it paints up extremely fast, really takes the color of the watered down paints quickly, and let's me paint out a serviceable road-network much more easily. The little holes in burlap also let me tack down the material with my thumb tack trees to secure it to rubber mats and any contour material without putting little holes all over it like with the other materials. It might be a little difficult to explain unless you try it, but working with burlap was just easier than any of the other ways I've tried to do this. The roughness of it turned out to almost be an advantage, and it still really looks nice with the 3mm figures. Clumping the tree foliage into denser, tighter clumps also helped a lot. And it will be a lot easier to replicate one I get some more cloth to work with. |
emckinney | 15 Apr 2016 8:49 a.m. PST |
Does the burlap lie better over the rubber mat elevation levels? Felt has a tendency to bulge and bunch, but I thought that the more open weave of burlap might let it expand and compress to avoid that. |
forwardmarchstudios | 15 Apr 2016 8:52 a.m. PST |
emckinney- I would assume so, but I need to try before I can say definitively. It should. I'll try to set it up later. |
Extra Crispy | 15 Apr 2016 11:25 a.m. PST |
Did you ever look at canvas? I made a mat with canvas once. It was easy but I decided to go with modular terrain in the end. |
forwardmarchstudios | 15 Apr 2016 11:44 a.m. PST |
Hi EC- Canvas works but good quality burlap isn't so different from canvas, really. Duck, which I used on my previous mat, is basically canvas without gesso. For reasons I'm not entirely sure about the burlap really came out nicely without a lot of work. The green tones look natural and I didn't have to fiddle with it or use any novel techniques or anything. It is also very light, which means I can transport it (plus the other 3 panels I want to make) on an airplane (which I'll be doing this summer- I'll be bringing my 3mm show to H-Con this year). |
miniMo | 15 Apr 2016 2:48 p.m. PST |
I loooove painting felt — spray it with several different colours of Rustoleum's Stone Texture paint (and each can is a mix of different coloured particles) and it gives a great textured and variegated look. Sometimes I spray other regular paints on top of that; spraying from a distance for a light splattery application. |
forwardmarchstudios | 15 Apr 2016 7:29 p.m. PST |
miniMo- Any pictures of that? |
Gazzola | 17 Apr 2016 4:31 a.m. PST |
Great images and blog. Almost made me want to go down a scale-almost. Just a thought to save some time and painting. We were able to find both a double and a single bed sheet fairly easy, which very close to matching grass green in colour. |
Gozerius | 22 Apr 2022 9:23 p.m. PST |
miniMo- That's what I did too. But next time I'll start with a beige rather than kelly green. |
pfmodel | 23 Apr 2022 2:14 a.m. PST |
Looks good. I have used felt in the past, but I never wanted to paint roads on felt. The hessian sheets look like a good alternative. I created a video a while back on different playing area ideas. I am still trying to work out the best solution, but your solution is a good way to get a nice playing are very quick. youtu.be/7qaURd3PGUU |